Tag Archives: creation

Sermon: Why I’m a fan of the Apostle Paul

In today’s short passage we have been told that we are all children of God and heirs of Christ; that suffering does not separate us from God, and most certainly is not a punishment from God; and that the non-human creation is just as important to the Creator as the human creation, and will one day ‘obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God’ together with us. Paul may sometimes have descended into the sexism of the society that surrounded him, and told women to be silent in church (1 Corinthians 14:34) but I am still a huge fan. Continue reading

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Sermon: Trinity Sunday

There is no room for self-sufficient rugged individualists in the church. We are creatures created in the image of the God who is community, and we are called to live as members of a community that includes everyone. That is how we will gather around the Lord’s Table later in this service. As I say every month, ‘Everyone who wishes to eat and drink at this table is welcome, because Christ turns no one away’. Continue reading

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Sermon: The Peaceable Kingdom

How can we look at everything that is happening around us, the homes and livelihoods destroyed by what is usually God’s good gift of water, the thousands of people who have died of covid19 in Australia and the millions who have died around the world, and say that God cares about creation? The author that we know as ‘Third’ Isaiah, from whom today’s reading from the Hebrew Scriptures comes, had the same challenge. The description of God’s holy mountain as a place where all creation is renewed seems completely unrealistic. But there was nothing fanciful in what Isaiah was doing. Continue reading

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Sermon: This is our story

In the single greatest act of civil disobedience ever seen this man, executed by the powers of Empire, was raised from the dead. The very least that the world’s oppressive regimes expect when they kill someone is that the person will stay killed. Continue reading

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A bit cut out of the Christmas Day sermon

I wrote this, about Psalm 96, but in the end didn’t fit. So I cut it out. I hate having to do that. But I like it; so have an outtake from the Christmas Day Sermon, about God’s care for … Continue reading

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Sermon: The cosmos was not created for us

We do not know why bad things happen to good people, or even why bad things happen to people like ourselves, middling good and middling bad. The Book of Job does not give us answers; maybe there are none. What it offers us, instead, is the reassurance that despite the immensity of a universe that seems indifferent to us, we have not been left alone in it. Continue reading

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Sermon: Choose to believe – at the core of the cosmos is love

… why not make the choice to believe that the Creator of the cosmos loves us, that love is at the core of the universe, and that God has come as close to us as a next-of-kin, as this psalm tells us? If we hold on to this, then we can look up at heavens and the firmament and believe that we are just as important to God as they are. Continue reading

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Sermon: Nothing will make God give up on us

Whenever we feel at our most alone, we can have faith that God is with us, because Jesus entered the wilderness ahead of us. Continue reading

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Reflection: The children of God

We are not just children of God; we are co-heirs with Christ. Everything that is his is ours. We could not be more important or have a higher status in the world than this. Continue reading

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Prayer for the times: Climate Emergency and Bushfires

We hold in our hearts before you those who have lost homes and loved ones; those who have had to evacuate; … Continue reading

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